Appeal of UEA’s Yamal FOI Refusal

Fred Pearce reported in the The Climate Files (page 54):

When I phoned Jones on the day the emails were published online and asked him what he thought was behind it, he said: “It’s about Yamal, I think”. The word turns up in 100 separate emails, more than “hockey stick” or any other totem of the climate wars. The emails began with it back in 1996 and they ended with it.

An April 2006 Climategate email (684. 1146252894.txt) referred to a regional chronology covering both Yamal and Polar Urals as follows:

we have three “groups” of trees:

“SCAND” (which includes the Tornetrask and Finland multi-millennial chronologies, but also some shorter chronologies from the same region). These trees fall mainly within the 3 boxes centred at: 17.5E, 67.5N; 22.5E, 67.5N; 27.5E, 67.5N

“URALS” (which includes the Yamal and Polar Urals long chronologies, plus other shorter ones). These fall mainly within these 3 boxes: 52.5E [SM: presumably 62.5E], 67.5N; 62.5E, 62.5N (note this is the only one not at 67.5N); 67.5E, 67.5N

A March 2007 email (780. 1172776463.txt) appears to indicate that the 2006 Chronology had elevated values around AD1000, as the 2007 email refers to an earlier version of the chronology with a “higher peak near 1000 AD”:

Here is the old version for you to compare with… the only noticeable difference is for the URALS/YAMAL region, which previously had a higher peak near 1000 AD.

Although I specifically drew the attention of the Muir Russell panel to the 2006 email as being very important in connection with their mandate to examine evidence “of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes”, the Muir Russell panel failed to cross-examine CRU on inconsistencies in their evidence to the panel with the contemporary emails in the Climategate dossier.

Earlier this year, I submitted an EIR request for the 2006 regional chronology and the associated list of sites. Both requests were refused. I then submitted an internal appeal to UEA, again refused.

While climate scientists frequently say that they are not in it for the money, UEA’s refusal was based not on the public interest, but on their claim that they would be financially damaged by disclosure of the 2006 chronology, saying that as “copyright holder”, they had “an expectation of making financial gain from” publication of the 2006 chronology and that disclosure would cause them
“financial harm via adverse impact upon reputation, ability to attract research funding, and funding arising from the citation of the publications within the REF process by which universities in the United Kingdom receive funding”.

I have now submitted an appeal to the Information Commissioner. See here for the appeal and here for the prior correspondence. The appeal includes a review of events, commenting unfavorably on a number of untruthful assertions made by CRU and UEA along the way as excuses for not providing data or not complying with FOI/EIR legislation.

Obviously, I think that their arguments are unconvincing. But aside from that, we often hear from the climate community that they are not in it for the money. Any climate scientist who has ever made such a statement should condemn UEA’s placement of the university’s supposed “financial gain” above the public interest. Unfortunately, the climate “community” have, as usual, stood by mutely. Will Michael Tobis or Andrew Dessler speak out against UEA’s refusal? Or will they maintain the silence of the lambs that we have observed in the past.

What a shabby, cheap and sleazy game the team has played, and continues to play.
The behavior of the UEA and the Mann contingent in the US screams out coverup, duplicity and cynicism.
Keep up the good work. The sleazoids will fold, ultimately.

Silence of the Lambs. Good one, Steve.
Of course, it is more than merely Dessler or Tobis. It is the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences who have not upheld the cause of good scientific practice.

““financial harm via adverse impact upon reputation, ability to attract research funding, and funding arising from the citation of the publications within the REF process by which universities in the United Kingdom receive funding”.”

When a company has been shown to cheat or defraud the public they can have all of the above consequences. Could they actually be quite honest with this response?

Indeed. But my hunch is the great man wasn’t taking everyone’s calls the “day the emails were published online” – meaning 17th November 2009 or a day or so later by the way? Jones did take the call from Fred Pearce and Steve’s right to highlight Pearce’s subsequent honesty about Climategate, especially coming from a Guardian journalist. He was part of the magic circle but he told something approaching the truth. It’s Pearce rather than Jones that is notable here. But most all Yamal.

I probably should have pointed out that CRU’s prospects of getting published in Science are more likely to be adversely affected by making untruthful statements to Science editors about not being in possession of data than providing data to critics.

Steve Mc, if you wouldn’t mind spending 2 seconds O/T, could you state what you think is a reasonable time frame for the Medieval Warm Period? I won’t be following up, just wanted your opinion if that’s ok.

They can’t possibly mean “people will laugh at how bad it is” as an excuse, can they?

Perhaps they’re trying to say “if we can’t hold our data hostage, then how will our CRU staff force themselves into co-author status on papers they largely have nothing to do with other than providing the data we’re holding hostage in exchange for a co-author credit”?

Steve, I’m a reader but not as studious as maybe I should be. My understanding was that they (the UEA) plan to release the missing Yamal information by Autumn of 2012, through a peer reviewed paper or the like.

I’m as interested in seeing this information as anyone on this post, and the sooner the better. On the other hand, they did agree to provide that information by this time next year. Am I mistaken?
Steve: Up until a few weeks ago, they had no intention of ever releasing the 2006 Chronology. And without the FOI request and resulting pressure, would never have done so.

As I argue in my submission, the UEA has made untruthful assertions in their refusal and have subverted the Act through their wrongful use of the exemptions. Whether or not they now plan to release the data towards the end of 2012, these assertions and subversions should not be allowed to stand and set precedents.

Nonetheless, the end of 2012 does set a date. A date that conveniently will prevent any response in academic literature prior to expiry of the AR5 deadlines – which they will undoubtedly enforce as against critics. Nonetheless, the chronology will perhaps emerge at that time presuming that their publication is accepted. Their undertaking makes no commitment to produce the data prior to publication of an article. (Some CRU articles have drifted for a long time.)

I would also feel more comfortable if someone independent secured the data in escrow to guard against it being inadvertently “lost” or “adjusted” in the meantime.

There have been a variety of speculative comments such as this one (see e.g. the dustup with Spencer, Trenberth et al) that there is a concerted effort by the team to try to ‘game’ the AR5 deadline. I have no idea whether that is the case (although it certainly wouldn’t surprise me). If so, however, wouldn’t it be the scientific equivalent of the Maginot Line?

Once upon a time, ‘stacking the deck’ in IPCC assessments may have allowed alarmists to play the appeal to authority fallacy with some limited political success. Could any alarmist still think it would be a smart political move now?! I would think that the very last thing that the IPCC could survive would be more revelations of error that could be tied to corruption of the science. If they don’t get their act together for AR5 and produce really first rate stuff, it will assuredly be the last assessment they do. I’m not sure they can survive revelations of any significant errors, even if they weren’t caused by an improper motive. But evidence of impropriety will surely cost it big time.

Stated another way — I’m not sure the IPCC has have any credibility it can afford to burn in an effort to provide some cover to politicians. If it does, it seems to me it would blow up on the politicians and likely sink the IPCC.

What’s the advantage of playing games to keep out an important study when everyone would already know it exists? It would just provide another opportunity to point out that the IPCC doesn’t represent the up-to-date state of the science so it ought just be ignored.

“financial harm via adverse impact upon reputation, ability to attract research funding, and funding arising from the citation of the publications within the REF process by which universities in the United Kingdom receive funding”

There are two possibilities here. The first is that the data is about to be used in a major article. The second is that the data has such serious issues that the ramifications will seriously damage the reputation of the CRU, making future research grants more difficult to obtain. I would be surprised if were the former, as the data is now quite old. If it is the latter, then revealing the data is very much is the interest of the UK taxpayers, of which I am one.

It’s my opinion that if UEA/CRU were either a drug or oil company, this would be plastered across all of the 24 hour news stations. Too bad that, for something this important, there aren’t any journalists to cover this sort of thing (I’m sure Andy Revkin and Keith Kloor are researching much more important topics).

Speaking of the inhabitants of virtual sheds and secret mens business it would be remiss of you all as it was me, to go there without thoroughly checking out their ‘Climate Change’ link to discover that-

which for lazybones and those who perpetually fail to do their homework on such things is here-

So there you have it in a nutshell and skeptics and deniers everywhere must now explain the ONLY man-made warming since the 1970s and those predicting an impending Ice Age at the time, obviously have a lot more explaining to do.

That obtaining data from a publicly funded UK science department (not involved in any patentable work)long after it being used in publications can be much harder then pulling a wisdom tooth from a conscious lion in the year 2011 CE is really Hollywood scenario material. Call it: “Nothing to hide!!!!”.

“financial harm via adverse impact upon reputation”. If accepted, that means that I can publish any fictitious claim,refuse to provide supporting evidence at the time and then later when challenged argue that publishing further information might expose the lie and bring me into disrepute, thus damaging my career.

Should the Commissioner uphold UAE on this point you should take him to the Information Tribunal. My experience of the Tribunal is that you do not require a lawyer to argue your case and the Tribunal is not impressed either by the Commissioner or by the body whose information he is protecting. In the case in which I was involved the Tribunal ordered the local government to attend and to be represented and then found that four named senior officers (including three lawyers )of that municipality had lied. On the findings of the Tribunal the Information Commissioner was forced to order the municipality to produce more than one thousand documents that It had attempted to hide.

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